Can Meditation Help with Digital Detox?

Photo by Valentin Balan on Unsplash

Science suggests meditation can help with an enormous range of health concerns and performance issues, from anxiety and stress to concentration and memory. But could it help with a digital detox, and why would someone want to undergo a digital detox in the first place?

Digital detox, the possible benefits

A digital detox is where someone chooses to forgo electronic devices (laptops, phones, tablets, games consoles, TVs) in order to “experience life without distractions”, as Brown Health University puts it. That university’s blog team lists several ways that our increasingly digital lives are affecting us:

• Shorter attention spans

• Increased multitasking, which our brains might not have been designed for

• Jobs becoming redundant due to technologies 

• Privacy issues due to targeted marketing and stolen identities

Regarding the latter issue, we can help ourselves to some extent even if we stay online. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts the information leaving our device and hides our real location from the web servers we connect to, which makes it harder for advertisers and data brokers to build a picture of us from our IP address alone. The spread of locations on offer matters more than it first appears: a server closer to home usually means less of a drop in speed, while a wider choice means somewhere else to connect through when one country's network is congested or restricted. Some of the major providers offer dozens of VPN countries, covering everywhere from Albania to Mexico to Japan. What a VPN can't do, though, is quieten the devices themselves, or stop the apps we're already signed into from watching what we do inside them.

But if we do choose to enjoy a digital detox and take a break from screens, we might find our stress and anxiety are reduced, our focus improves, and we have more time to do the other things we enjoy. Brown Health University also notes that we may experience better sleep and enhanced relationships.

You may have noticed that several of these possible benefits overlap with those of meditation, which might be the perfect partner to a digital detox.

Benefits of meditation and why you might practice during a digital detox

The science is compelling.

Healthline’s article on the benefits of meditation (medically reviewed by Joslyn Jelinek, LCSW, ACSW, RDDP) suggests that it may help with:

• Stress

• Anxiety

• Emotional health

• Self-awareness

• Attention span

• Memory

• Kindness

• Addiction

• Sleep

• Pain

• Blood pressure

Many of these areas have been extensively researched. 

Regarding pain control, for example, a 2017 review of 38 studies concluded that people with chronic pain find that mindfulness meditation can improve their quality of life, reduce pain, and decrease symptoms of depression.

Metta meditation, often known as loving-kindness meditation, teaches people first to accept themselves and then extend that kindness to other people. A meta-analysis of 22 studies on metta meditation demonstrated metta meditation’s ability to increase our compassion toward ourselves and others. 

Some people find that other forms of meditation, such as walking meditation, are easier to approach. Walking meditation is often practiced formally (most famously by Buddhist monks), just as someone might sit and focus on their breath for 15 or 20 minutes. Other times, it’s practiced more informally, bringing mindfulness to a daily activity. 

Others enjoy music meditation. The Art of Living says that we might apply Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s advice to “listen not just to the sound but to the silence too” to music meditation.  

More time away from screens means more time to meditate. Whether we choose to practice metta, listen mindfully to music, or start a new daily routine of walking meditation, we have the chance to improve our health and enjoy our lives more.